The invention relates to a system for supplying a consumer with gaseous fuel, with at least one compressed gas container which is connected in terms of flow to the consumer via a collecting line and valves. In most cases, the consumer is a gas-operated internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle. Since the gas is stored at a filling pressure of 200 bar or more, and for reasons concerned with accommodating it in the motor vehicle, use is frequently made of a plurality of containers of relatively small diameter, up to now gas cylinders of the commercially available type.
Such a system with two compressed gas containers is described, for example, in EP 761 951 B1, but this is primarily concerned with the control of the pressure in the consumer, which is not the subject matter of the present invention. The compressed gas containers can never be entirely emptied because of the pressure drop between the containers and the injection nozzles of the internal combustion engine. Their storage capacity is therefore only incompletely used. The compressed gas containers therefore have to be dimensioned for a capacity which is greater than the amount which can actually be used. Therefore, however, the range of the vehicle with a batch of containers is limited.